Southwest Alabama runners beat heat at Boston Marathon

View full sizeMobilian John Brigham finished 71st overall in the Boston Marathon. (Courtesy of marathonfoto.com)

MOBILE, Alabama -- The 2012 Boston Marathon was a race to remember for a number of southwest Alabama runners.

For one thing, running in such a prestigious race was a chance of a lifetime. For another, this year the race was run in extremely hot temperatures. It was so hot, in fact, that last year’s champion, Kenya’s Geoffrey Mutai -- who set a world best of 2 hours, 3 minutes and 2 seconds in that race -- dropped out at mile 18 with stomach cramps.

Sixteen runners from southwest Alabama -- eight from Baldwin County, seven from Mobile, and one from Atmore -- were among the 22,000 participants in the 112th edition of the race.

The Mobile runners were John Brigham, Barry Tucker, Robert Staples, Gregory Yeager, Joe Weaver, Andra Bruce and Chris Lawson. The Baldwin County runners were Kenneth Pfeiffer of Loxley; Jamie Waldhour, Larry Wayne, Freda Rambo, and Samantha Gardner, all of Fairhope; Paul Baswell of Loxley; Susan Montgomery of Spanish Fort; and Joseph Paulus of Loxley. The Atmore runner was Mark Rice.

“At least I can have the experience of running in Boston,” said Brigham, who finished 71st overall (65th among the men) in 2:38:17. “This is my fourth marathon ever, but it’s the first time that I didn’t have something bad happen to me towards the end. It’s the first time I haven’t cramped at the end of a race.”

The overall winner was Kenya’s Wesley Korir, who ran 2:12:40 -- more than nine minutes slower that Mutai’s winning time in 2011. The heat was so intense, more than 2,000 runners required medical attention.

None of that was lost on Brigham, who said he played it safe, and learned some tips from fellow Mobilian Ben Stimpson, who ran in the Boston Marathon several times in the past.

“Ben ran it a few times, and gave me some idea of what to expect on the course,” he said. “It really helped out a lot. I was passing people late in the race, and that’s what you want to do. I backed off the pace early, and I was taking a lot of fluids.

“If you go out too fast, you pay dearly, so by being patient, I was able to pick it up the last six miles.”

Pfeiffer wasn’t worried so much about his time as just surviving the race. “Even though it was my worst time in a marathon, I was still passing people left and right by the end of the race,” he said. “Nearly every medical tent was full, so I wasn’t disappointed.

“Being from south Alabama, you may think you’re equipped to handle the heat, but running a marathon with temps in the 80’s will bear you down regardless of where you are from,” he noted.

“Kerry and a few others (in our group) ran well,” Brigham said. “I think he did as well as he could in those conditions. To finish the race was a good deal.”

As for Brigham, he’ll concentrate on training over the summer before getting back into races.

“I’ll be doing a lot of training this summer, but I might jump into some things when fall rolls around,” he said. “I’m trying to balance it with a full-time job, but as long as you don’t pressure yourself, you can do it.”